Abraham Lincoln in the Kitchen Read online

  Makes 6 to 8 servings

  ADAPTED FROM “FRICASSEED CHICKENS,” MISS ELIZA LESLIE, DIRECTIONS FOR COOKERY IN ITS VARIOUS BRANCHES, 1845.

  PICCALILLI

  OF FRUITS AND VEGETABLES

  Piccalilli is a mixture of all kinds of pickles … small cucumbers, button onions, small bunches of cauliflowers, carrots cut in fanciful shape, radishes, bean-pods, Cayenne-pods, ginger, olives, grapes, limes, strips of horse-radish, etc., etc.… It is an excellent accompaniment to many highly-seasoned dishes; if well put up, it will keep for years.

  —MRS. BLISS OF BOSTON

  THE PRACTICAL COOK BOOK, 1850

  As I read through biography and historical narratives, I noted incidental descriptions of Abraham Lincoln’s encounters with fruits or vegetables. Indiana neighbors remembered the fruits growing wild near Griggstown along with the vegetable crops that would have been raised on the Lincoln farm.

  Reports from Springfield, Illinois, are less complete than those from Lincoln’s youth. Springfield store records show the Lincolns purchased turnips. Alas, the White House information is just as sparse. There aren’t any cook’s notes or menus, but visitors did report that Lincoln enjoyed spinach, cabbage, and baked beans.

  Lincoln did recognize the economic importance of vegetables as he used a farmer’s crop of vegetables and fruit in an argument he developed on the impact of tariffs shortly before he took his seat in Congress in December 1847. He named “radishes, cabbages, Irish and sweet potatoes, cucumbers, water-melons and musk-melons, plumbs [sic], pears, peaches, apples and the like; all these are good things” which could be traded with a neighbor producing iron tools.

  Then there is the statement of his friend and law partner, William Herndon. In describing Lincoln’s eating habits Herndon wrote, “He loved best the vegetable world generally … and especially did he love apples.” Not only did Abraham Lincoln eat his vegetables, he loved them “best.” There’s a sentence to warm the heart of any mother trying to encourage her children to eat healthfully. “Eat your veggies and you can be president, not only president, but perhaps the best one the country ever had.”

  As my father would have said, these incidental descriptions “didn’t amount to a hill of beans.” There isn’t enough to build a narrative chapter, but I do think these side dishes provide interesting clues. They, and the research that rounds them out, present insights into culinary and gardening practices in the middle of the nineteenth century and add a bit of relish to the Lincoln story.

  We’ll start with the fruits. Early midwestern settlers delighted in discovering locally growing fruits: wild plums, pawpaws, strawberries, and other berries. Newcomers to an area often planted fruit trees. Thomas Lincoln planted peach trees in Kentucky and peach and apple trees in Indiana. The practice continued as communities grew. Springfield newspapers and agricultural journals were filled with nursery advertisements listing dozens of apple, peach, and other fruit trees and bushes. Abraham and Mary had a pair of apple trees growing in their yard. Apparently it was some kind of late-summer or early-fall apple, maybe a Jonathan, a popular variety from the 1850s we still enjoy today.

  Springfield’s winter climate limits the availability of homegrown fruits, but all was not lost for those who wanted fresh fruit in the fall, winter, and early spring. The November 1856 Springfield newspapers bragged of fresh and exotic produce as they offered customers tastes from far away and out of season. Meyers’s grocery declared: “Just received by express, 200 pineapples, fresh and in splendid order. Two barrels sweet oranges from New York.” Mr. John Snelling’s advertisement provided the full transportation details of his fresh citrus: “Just arrived from Havana via New York lemons and oranges.”

  A short report in the St. Louis Valley Farmer, quoting the New York Times, explained why Meyers emphasized the quality of his fruit. “Pineapples furnish the palate with perpetual illusion. You lay hold of one, and its delicious flavor promises great pleasure to the palate, but it seems to fail of meeting the demand exactly, and though you stuff with the woody fibrous body of the [pine]apple till your judgment forbids any more, you still experience a craving for it. They are not worth what they cost to common folk.”

  Whereas Mr. Meyers asserted that his pineapples were fit to eat, period cookbooks offered ways for unfortunate shoppers to transform the “illusionary” ones into jams and jelly. I have to confess that I’ve used nineteenth-century recipes from time to time to make pineapple preserves with modern pineapples that were less than perfect.

  Preserving foods was an important part of nineteenth-century homemaking. Every period cookbook had a chapter or two or three covering the basics of jams, jellies, pickles, including the end-of-season garden relish piccalilli, and “store sauces,” ketchups and other bottled concoctions that cooked down pecks of vegetables into pints of sauce ready to add savory and sharp flavors to winter meals.

  Francis & Barrell’s store advertised that they had “new pattern preserving glass jars” for sale on September 10, 1858, just in time for the ladies of Springfield to put up fruit for winter and prepare their entries for the state fair. In a remarkable achievement, or endorsement of the jar’s effectiveness, Mrs. Simeon Francis, the merchant’s wife, took away first place for her peaches, currants, gooseberries, strawberries, apples, crab apples, pears, and red raspberry jelly.

  Homemakers were not the only ones to preserve seasonal goodness. By the middle of the nineteenth century, commercial canneries were “putting up” jellies, jams, fruits, and even some vegetables, in glass jars sealed with corks or in cans with soldered-on lids for sale across the country and around the world. As early as 1847, tomatoes were commercially canned in Pennsylvania.

  In June of 1858, Lavely’s Springfield market advertised some of those canned tomatoes along with currant jelly and “peaches and fresh strawberries in cans.” Back in January 1858, Wilson & Curry’s market had offered “Tomato sauce—something new” and “Apple butter—a choice article.”

  Uncanned fresh fruits arrived in Springfield, too, shipped in on the railroad before local crops ripened. Stores offered peaches, pears, quinces, strawberries, blackberries, cherries, and damsons (plums). On July 5, 1856, Francis & Barrell store shouted: “TOMATOES just received from the South. Lovers of these delicious and esculent foods will find a large supply.”

  Fruits may have been available “fresh in cans” throughout the year, but vegetables, with the exception of tomatoes, were largely home- and locally grown. The Lincolns had ready access to the freshest locally grown fruits and vegetables. The Market Square at Ninth and Market Streets, just two blocks from their home, was filled from spring through fall with fresh farm produce.

  As to the Lincolns’ own backyard garden efforts, recollections differ. Certainly, Lincoln knew how to grow vegetables; he was raised on a hardworking farm. Back in Indiana settlement days, maintaining a substantial vegetable garden would have been essential. Now, in the mid-1850s, for the Lincolns and many Springfield residents, gardening was more of a hobby. Magazines of the day promoted gardening not so much as an essential source of foods but as a useful enterprise for city dwellers. “No professional man, nor any other one confined to in-door employment, who has the command of a rod of ground, ought to be without the exercise and the exertion required for keeping in good order a small garden.… A garden, in fact, is essential to the health, comfort, and well-being of the mechanic and day-laborer; and it may also be said to be essential to the comfort and enjoyment of individuals of every class.”

  I know something of gardening in the Midwest. I grew up in Indiana, went to college in Iowa, and then moved, over the course of thirty years, to Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, and Minnesota, with Virginia, New Jersey, and Alabama in between. So, although I’m familiar with the culture of the South, the Deep South, and the East Coast, I’ve always been a midwesterner.

  There is a midwestern worldview, one that in Lincoln’s time was categorized as “western,” because, of course, Illinois and the Mississip
pi River were the western edge of the United States, California notwithstanding. Then, as now, crops and food were an important part of the midwestern psyche. We can’t escape their influence. We’re surrounded by millions of acres of bounty-filled fields. And most of us, given half a chance, will grow some kind of vegetable garden, even if it’s only a cherry tomato plant in a pot on the back deck.

  Back in Lincoln’s backyard, neighbor James Gourley told Herndon, “He once—for a year or so—had a garden and worked in it.” But Lincoln’s niece, Harriet Hanks Chapman, said that she “never knew him to make a garden, but no one loved flowers more.” Mary Lincoln’s sister Frances Todd Wallace noted that Mary wasn’t much of a gardener either, reporting, “She never made a garden, at least not more than once or twice.” Whether or not the Lincoln family raised their own vegetables, the now-huge persimmon tree still standing in the neighbor’s yard to the north of the Lincolns’ home must have witnessed gardens growing all around the neighborhood with plenty of produce to share.

  Businessman and newspaper editor Simeon Francis provided a valuable window into Springfield’s gardening culture. In addition to Francis and Burrell’s store, Francis operated a nursery selling a variety of fruit trees and other landscaping trees and shrubs. He sold flower and garden seeds, too. His March 1859 ad in Illinois Farmer offers a mostly alphabetical listing of popular vegetables. Beginning with beans and ending with tomatoes, the list (see next page) provides insights into popular crops for Springfield farmers and backyard gardeners.

  Just look at it—seven different kinds of snap beans, seven kinds of cabbage, and five of pole beans. To satisfy early fresh vegetable hunger, there are four kinds of cucumbers and radishes, and three varieties of lettuce. And then there are the two kinds of rhubarb. One of the earliest crops up in the spring, rhubarb is one part vegetable—you eat the stalks; one part fruit—you cook those stalks with sugar like a dessert; and one part tonic—my grandmother used to say it was “just the thing to clean your blood.” The Tennessee Farmer was more precise: “No head of a family who regards the health of his offspring should be without some dozen plants in his garden as in them he will have a sure and certain curative for [digestive diseases].”

  To keep the tables filled with delicious vegetables during the winter, there are the root crops perfect to put down in the root cellar next to the bushels of potatoes. Carrots, turnips, parsnips, beets, and onions all keep well sheltered under a blanket of straw.

  Nineteenth-century gardening and cookbooks suggest letting the flavors of these varieties shine on their own. The recipes and preparation instructions in book after book are mostly simple: boil and top with a bit of butter. But there are a few intriguing ideas. I discovered a simple way to season Brussels sprouts with vinegar, butter, and nutmeg. Eggplant is fried, and its taste explained as “nearer to that of a very nice fried oyster than, perhaps, any other plant. Lettuce is described as an agreeable salad, but also as a “useful ingredient in soups.” Homemakers cooked cucumbers, too. As for tomatoes, although in her 1860 cookbook Mrs. Putnam does offer a recipe for “tomatoes raw,” dressing the slices with pepper, salt, and vinegar, it appears most tomatoes were cooked rather than sliced. There are recipes for baked tomatoes, tomatoes sliced on tarts, stewed for soups and sauces, and preserved for winter use like ketchup. The edition of Miss Eliza Leslie’s cookbook owned by Mary Lincoln notes, “Tomatoes require long cooking, otherwise they will have a raw taste, that to most persons is unpleasant.”

  VEGETABLE SEEDS

  Offered for Sale in Springfield—March 1859

  BEANS FOR SNAP: Valentine, early Newington, thousand-to-one, early Mohawk, early China white, cranberry bush, Royal white bush

  POLE BEANS: London horticultural cranberry, Siva, Lima, Red cranberry, Indian chief

  CABBAGE: Early Wakefield, early York, early sugar loaf, premium flat Dutch, large American drumhead, drumhead, Kohl Rabi

  CAULIFLOWER: Early London

  CORN: Early red cob dwarf, mammoth sweet, Smith’s early white

  BEETS: Early blood turnip, long blood, red mangle, English sugar beet, white sugar

  CUCUMBERS: Short green early, long London, long turkey, gherkins

  CELERY: Solid white, crystal white, solid red

  CRESS: Curled double, broad leaf

  CARROTS: Common yellow, early born, blood red, Belgium yellow

  EGG PLANT: Early long purple

  KALE

  LETTUCE: Ice cube, green drumhead, early white

  MELONS: Cantaloupe, pine apple, nutmeg, green citron, large yellow cantaloupe

  WATER MELON: Mountain sprout, Long Island, Ice cream, black Spanish, citron melon, Nasturtium

  OKRA: Short and long green

  ONIONS: Large red, early red, Danver’s yellow, yellow silver skin, white Portugal

  PEPPERS: Large bull, large squash, Spanish, cherry, small cayenne

  PEAS: Early Comstock dwarf, Bishop’s long pod, champion of England, dwarf Prussian, Prince Albert

  PUMPKINS: Large yellow field

  PARSNIP: Long sweet

  PARSLEY: Double curled, Myatt’s garnishing

  RHUBARB: Mitchell’s early, Hyatt’s Victoria

  SPINACH

  SQUASHES (WINTER): winter crookneck, Hubbard’s winter

  SQUASHES (SUMMER): Karly crookneck bush, early yellow bush

  TURNIP

  TOMATOES: Large red, red cherry, yellow

  RADISHES: Early red turnip, early long, red short top, long black radish

  SALSIFY: White

  Though the recipes for cooking all kinds of vegetables may be simple, the varieties of the vegetables themselves were not. The market for native American-grown seeds was slow to develop. Through the middle of the nineteenth century, seed sellers trumpeted their stock of imported seeds. According to an 1840 Rochester Seed Company advertisement, “The present stock of imported seeds is very extensive; they were selected with great care among the best growers in England and Scotland.… The stock of American seeds is also very large.” Even in the 1850s, some advertisers still described their stock as coming from England or France.

  But many seedmen were developing and promoting plants that would thrive in the American climate. Scores of new seed varieties listed in the U.S. Patent Office report demonstrated American innovation. We can easily enjoy one of these varieties today. The winter Hubbard squash comes to market every fall. In an advertisement in the April 1860 issue of American Agriculturalist, J. H. Gregory staked his claim to speak to the nature of the squash: “Having given the Hubbard squash its name and having been the first to introduce it to the public notice.” He promoted its virtues in his own advertisement for its seed. “It is the sweetest, richest, driest of all winter squashes.”

  The 1854 Farmer’s Dictionary gives some clues to the value of some of these American-cultured vegetables and fruits: “Cauliflower—an improved cabbage, the flowers of which form a mass of great delicacy. Early white, late white and purple.” “Melons—the best varieties are Skillman’s netted, green-fleshed citron, green-fleshed nutmeg … and pineapple.” And the “Tomato—much used as a vegetable, preserve and pickle. Seed sown in a hot bed in March and plants set out in May.”

  And, as Simeon Francis’s ad suggested, beans were an important food of amazing variety. I’m used to growing green “snap” beans where the bean we eat is just the pod with the small, immature seed inside. I’ve grown lima beans, too, where we ate just the bean seeds and not the pod. We’ve picked them fresh, or let them dry so that I could cook them baked-bean style in the winter. Many of the beans grown in Springfield gardens did double duty, some enjoyed as fresh green “snap” beans, some left to mature for use as dried beans, as these nineteenth-century descriptions of some of Francis’s varieties demonstrate:

  Early Mohawk pods are pale green, long and flat. Early China excellent variety for both snaps and shelled beans, green and dry. Seeds white with bright red eye and round oval shape Early Valentine snaps only having round f
leshy pods which remain a long time brittle and tender. Thousand-to-One late round-podded variety. Royal White pods long and rather flat, excellent green and equal to any in a dry state. Horticultural Cranberry used both in the pod and shelled, pods striped with red, medium-sized oval bean light red and cream color speckled. Indian Chief best of all poles beans for cooking in the pods which are tender and delicious when the beans are fully grown. Newington Early and prolific long slender pods.

  Some of these heritage varieties, once nearly crowded from culture, are available now from organizations and companies that specialize in seed saving and nurturing. I’ve found several of these historical Springfield varieties by simply doing a Web search for the name of the plant.

  I tried growing a few varieties this past drought-stricken, travel-filled summer. Melons, beets, and Hubbard squash failed, but I managed to harvest a few tasty yellow crookneck squash after a clever gardening neighbor told me how to thwart the squash borers by burying the vine every few inches. Freshly pulled white Belgian carrots filled the kitchen with a rich, sweet, and earthy aroma before they were cooked. While the squash and carrots were more flavorful than modern varieties, pole beans were an education in heritage eating. Simeon Francis’s descriptions of bean production were bountifully proved even in my somewhat neglected garden. The McCaslin and Kentucky Wonder beans filled the pods much earlier and faster than the skinny almost non-seedy green snap beans I’m used to. I cooked the bumpy pods, and we enjoyed a meaty texture and rich taste in the same mouthful with the green bean flavors. Served with a bit of butter and a dash of vinegar, they were wonderful.

  At the end of the summer, I left beans to dry on the vine so we could try these varieties in winter soups. An early killing freeze sent me out to the garden to pluck the pods before they froze on the vine. Some were close enough to finish drying on the counter. Most had just passed beyond the snap bean phase. I popped the beans out of their leathery pods and tossed the pods away. Then I cooked the beans like lima beans. Most tasty. From one planting of beans, I ended up with three kinds of meals. I will definitely plant these again.